This 2D Game Character Animation Project’s contains several animation states of a 64x64 (excluding the ledge animations) pixel polar bear character ready to use in game. Created in Aseprite over the course of 3 weeks, the states include:
Idle
Walk/Run
Jump
Ledge Climb
Take Damage + Downed + Get Up
There is also an extra animation of him fishing compiled in a Unity Timeline Cutscene and a snowball projectile! I also tested out the animations in Godot and Unity.
Idle
Process
I started off creating an Idle state for the character first, as I thought it’d be the fastest way to get the color palette and shading details down. My first run was too sideways, I thought it’d be more interest for a back facing 3/4ths view. As soon as I got the first frame down, I focused on making sure the head bobbed up and down to mimic breathing. However, it didn’t look quite right, so I had to change the upper body to expand and contract. This looked much better, but it looked awkward that all of the motion stopped as the animation hits the bear’s waist. I thought it would be overkill for the entire body to move, so I made it so the motion stops at the bend of the bear’s knees. Ultimately this looks much much better, especially with the shading detail of the puffer jacket. I added the cigarette last, to give the bear personality, but also interest to the character as a whole via secondary animation. I ended up using this first animation to reference the size, colors, shading, shape, and smoke for the rest of the other animation states.
Walk/Run
Initial Sketch
The Walk/Run state was quite challenging, as from Idle, I went right into a more movement focused animation. I was having trouble with it, so I started off with a sketch, there are two colors so I can differentiate which limbs are in the back and which are in the front. I focused on making sure the head was moving up and down as the character walks, and then the arms and the legs and feet. The result of this is that the character seemingly walks with more purpose and intention, but I also feel it encapsulates the weight and power of this character as well.
Once I was happy with the sketch, I replaced and cleaned it with the actual character. By this stage it was clean, but it felt lacking. I added movement to his ears, so they bounce back and forth as he walks! Then, I spent sometime figuring out how to do a smoking animation. I attempted to do a trailing smoke, but quickly found that caused a lot of complications, such as figuring out a loop that looked natural as he walked around in real game space. I decided that it was better to have him huff and puff almost like a train, and it further emphasizes the power in his walk! So it all worked out!
Jump
The jump animation was a very interesting experience, I knew I wanted to emphasize the weight and power the character has in his jump. It’s very important that the anticipation of his jump is dramatic, the airtime and distance of his jump is short, and that there is follow through in his motion when he lands. On top of those elements, I wanted to keep his personality true to how he would jump, so even though it takes a lot of energy to jump, he personally would not try hard to jump… if that makes sense haha! I felt the best way to do this was to keep his hands in his pockets. It looks a little wonky as he is jumping in place, but this is much better for slicing and putting into a game engine.
Ledge Climb
The ledge climb started as a sketch, with two low opacity still images from my idle animation at the bottom and top of the ledge as size continuity reference. I took a look at ledge climb videos from Smash Bros games to see how different characters approach climbing a ledge. When I found similar body types/approaches to my character, I analyzed the animation frame by frame to see which elements I could take inspiration from. I particularly liked the struggle of the feet swinging around before being able to get up properly. I had this idea beforehand, but seeing a visual helped me further develop my idea, and eventually making the final feet/leg animation struggle in air and also push off of the side of the leg. Once I got the legs done, the other movements of the body just needed to match the movement of the legs. I particularly enjoyed animating his head moving back and his eyes showing struggle.
Take Damage
The idea for this hurt animation was to make an ambiguous animation, one where it is obvious that the character is taking damage, but the source of it isn’t clear. This is because this project was made for the animations to be ready to be put in any platformer game, if the situation was otherwise, or if I were to return to this project, I would make a unique animation in correspondence with the game that this bear belongs to. I made his take damage short, as it fits his personality, he is a heavy character and even a hard blow would not knock him down. I also thought it would be much more interesting to have his cigarette fly out and disappear, in this way it opens the opportunity for me to further portray his character by having him put another cigarette in his mouth shortly after recovering from the blow.
Downed and Get Up
For this animation, I really wanted to draw the downed frame as him flat on his stomach, I thought it was really cute, so I made the animation revolve around this frame. Starting from the beginning frame of the take damage animation, I made him fall completely down to reach the downed frame. From here, I needed to get him up and transition into the idle frame. I took the approach of having him get up using all fours and arching his back upwards, shrinking horizontally as he does so. I thought it would be cute, and also show some squash and stretch. I had a still from the idle animation as reference for size continuity, though it was still a little bit of a challenge for when I started squishing the body. It was a healthy challenge, and I am satisfied with the results! My favorite touch was making the hood fall over his eyes as he gets up.
Fishing Cutscene
This scene is comprised of four images, the background, the rod stand, the bear sprite, and half of the fishing line. The background is a still image. Originally the bear sprite included the other half of the fishing line, but alas, the image was too big including it and it ruined the resolution/quality of the sprite and its animation. However, splitting the two sprites proved to be challenging as I had to align their positions and time the animations (which included moving keyframes around) in order to get them to work seamlessly. Unity timeline definitely helped with this as I basically made it so the fishing line sprite enabled as it was needed in the animation, so it wasn’t just sitting there still on the screen. The same was applied to the fishing rod, as the bear lines up with the rod, the original standalone rod stand image disables, allowing the sprite to look like it picked up the rod from the stand. You can also see my other animations here that I have blended to begin the fishing sequence.
Snowball
This snowball was an animation I did for fun for the bear to throw as a projectile in an experimental 2D platformer game. I added an impact splatter at the end of the animation that would play when the projectile collided against walls, grounds, and enemies. I had a lot of fun doing this one, and it’s really cute. I particularly enjoyed the pixel aspect in this one, as the white separated pixels really give a nice snowball texture to this animation. I made sure to pay attention to the shadows in this, so that the ball looks like it is in motion and rotating as it flies through the air.